Christmas with Granny & Pa

I have so many good pictures from Christmas that I need to organize and share. It was a very nice Christmas in spite of some sickness. Spoiler alert: We did not make it to every family function as I suspected we may not. Here's a hint of who was sick...and it wasn't Darrin.

More on that when I have time to organize my thoughts. Tonight, just a few pics of our Christmas with Darrin's mom, dad, sister and brother, and their families. I look forward to this get together every year.

It gets harder and harder to find a day that works for everyone, and lately we've resorted to a week night after work. 

We only had from around 6-8:30pm, but it was nice and time didn't feel rushed or like it went by too quickly.

We ate pizza and opened gifts.

Before gifts though, we made the kids take pictures. The girls...

The boys...

Bribing them with gifts proved to be the most efficient picture taking session ever. Even Carson was cooperative for around 5 seconds. But we got the picture we wanted in age order from left to right: Olivia, Ava, Jayci, Miles, Rowan, and Carson. Ava & Olivia belong to Darrin's sister, Crystal. Jayci & Rowan belong to Darrin's brother, Aaron.

After some good smiles, it was time for presents.

Carson got to go first since he is the youngest. Granny wanted them to go in age order to open one gift and then we turned them loose.

After the presents, we hung out for a little while and then left all the kids to have a sleepover with Granny & Pa!!! I don't know who was more excited the kids or the parents that got to have a kid free night.

Miles and Carson were the first two to fall asleep. Raise your hand if you're surprised. And this is Carson soon after Darrin picked him up which is quite a gift b/c it meant that he slept on the way home instead of screaming.

They had a great time. I felt pretty guilty leaving them with all those wound up kids, but they were excited to have them and the kids made some great memories. They all get along really well and enjoy spending time together. Hopefully Granny & Pa had fun and will have them over again soon :) 

Less Words Wednesday

Christmas break calls for a sleepover & matching pjs with your best friend.

Merry Christmas!

Love,

Darrin, Jennifer, Miles & Carson

Happy Christmas Eve

Traditional Christmas Eve boxes have been opened.

Reindeer food is out in the yard.

Christmas jammies are on.

And now we wait for Santa. Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

A Little Pre-Christmas

First, the bad news. After his weekend of sickness, Darrin took him to the doctor on Monday and she confirmed it was the flu. He felt miserable for several days, but he's finally on the mend. So far, everyone else is okay. I'll consider it our very own Christmas miracle if we make it to every family function.

Now onto a few Christmas things. Miles wrote a very extravagant letter to Santa at school. In case you can't read it, he asked for a pool, $5,000, an iPhone 8, and a car, just to name a few.

Santa wrote back to everyone in the class. His teacher sent pictures and said that it was a very exciting day.

I rocked the Ugly Sweater contest at work. This is my boss. He hired me in 2001. I've moved to a few different departments over the last 16 years and now I'm back working for him. It's been a good move!

Miles wrote another note to Santa asking for an Elf.

Last year we had Sugar Twinkle Socks. This year we have his friend, Snowdrop Flippy Mittens. Sugar Twinkle Socks was a little more adventurous. Snowdrop Flippy Mittens usually just hides somewhere. Every now and then he does something funny.

Carson made a really cute ornament at school. I know already that I will love to get this one out every year.

All the presents are wrapped and arranged neatly in the guest bedroom b/c they wouldn't last an hour under our tree. Carson would have them unwrapped in no time. We never had to worry about that with Miles, but I know better than to even try with Carson.

We went to an FCA dinner with some friends. These are our baseball friends. This group = fun times.

So now the countdown to Christmas is on. I have one day of work left. The presents are bought and wrapped. I just have to organize a few things and grocery shop and we will be ready to go. Come on Santa!

Weekend Wrap Up

Carson woke up excited to find the elf on Friday morning. He LOVES the elf. He laughs and points whenever he sees him.

Miles, on the other hand, was not excited to wake up on Friday b/c that meant going to school with his black eye. It looked really bad when he woke up.

I went to eat lunch with him for his Christmas lunch and it was already looking better by the time I got there. The swelling has gone down a lot and now it's just the crazy colors that he has to deal with.

The one thing that got him through the day was the fact that Mason was coming home with him and spending the night. Unfortunately, as soon as I got home from work and took one look at him, I could tell he was running a fever. You can even see his red cheeks in the pic below. They ate pizza and popsicles while we waited for Mason's dad to pick him up. Miles did not handle the disappointment of Mason leaving well at all. There was screaming, crying, and even some throwing of toys. Controlling his emotions (when things don't go his way) has never been his strong suit.

On Saturday morning, I Christmas shopped online in peace before anyone woke up. I don't know why I don't make it a point to wake up early on the weekend and just sit by myself in the sun room. I sure do enjoy the peace and quiet.

I went to the gym and then did some Christmas shopping and errands. After a hard week of work outs, I almost bought this. True story.

The rest of the weekend was spent laying around, playing, and doing a few things around the house. Miles has been so sick all weekend. His fever got up to 103.9 on Saturday night after Motrin. I had to put him in a lukewarm bath with a cold wash cloth on his head to make it come down. I really think it's the flu. Darrin is going to take him to the doctor tomorrow just to be sure it's not strep. Carson is still hanging in there. Sure hope he avoids it. High fevers scare me.

That's all for now. Miles is sleeping on a cot in our room so I can keep an eye on him and give him medicine every 3 hours. I'm a fan of Motrin, but we've been rotating it with Tylenol Cold & Flu and that seems to give him more relief. Since Miles is sleeping in our room, I'm going to go ahead and go to bed too. Good night!

Rough Day for the McClure Boys

By 9am this morning, I had gotten phone calls from both school and daycare. Miles bumped heads with a kid in P.E. The nurse text me this pic and said he was being tough and his pupils were fine. He put some ice on it and went back to class.

Carson, on the other hand, had to be picked up and checked out for pink eye. He woke up with gooey eyes, but between the time we dropped him off and the time they called, they had gotten much worse. I thought it was just allergies, but I'm leaning towards pink eye. The nurse called in drops, so we never took him in. Putting eye drops in his eyes is the ultimate challenge. Really, really tough.

This picture sums up who is handling their issues better.

Miles is completely embarrassed and wants to hide out in the house for the next week. Carson is still going full speed ahead. That's life with these boys. I think Miles will look a little better when the swelling goes down. It appears that Carson will be home again tomorrow probably b/c none of the eye drops are actually making it in his eyes. Thankfully, Darrin is slow this time of year and can stay home with him.

Less Words Wednesday

We bought our Elf a pet (I'm a sucker) and Miles insisted on building him a stable.

Watching Daddy & Miles work.

Then, Carson went from room to room watching Darrin work.

I'm actually going to miss Miles being in a portable next year. It's so easy to pull up and drop him off right at his classroom door. I like watching him walk in on the days that I drop him off.

Carson loved his early Christmas present from Stephie.

Miles was pretty excited about his too.

It's a hard life.

 

Girls Shopping Trip

Over the weekend, I went to Nashville to go Christmas shopping with five friends. We have all been counting down the days.

Two of us have moved away so it was a great time to get to hang out with my Martin friends. This was our second year to go. Last year, one friend brought several candles from Bath & Body Works early in the day. The mall makes a big circle so it's hard to run out to the car. We ended up taking turns carrying the candles around the mall b/c she was pregnant. This year's candles were large Buzz & Woody dolls from the Disney Store. Several of us go suckered by a good deal.

We finally made a trip to the car and unloaded just before this picture.

I love these girls. We stayed together for a while and then some would walk on. Occasionally we would text to find out where everyone was and meet back up. It was a very laid back kind of day.

I ended up doing more shopping for stuff we needed and less Christmas shopping. I didn't really have time to get my list together before the trip so it was really about the company for me.

After shopping, we went to dinner and back to our place to hang out. We rented a little place on the back of someone's house. Hotels in Nashville are outrageous and we thought this would be more comfortable for our group. It was perfect.

It was two story with a kitchen, fireplace, two bathrooms, and a cozy living room to hang out in. 

There were six places for people to sleep, which fit us perfectly.

When we all lived in Martin, we used to get together for each other's birthdays. Since we can't do that, we decided to celebrate them all while we were together. We had a Favorite Things party. We've done this before as a group and once again it did not disappoint. Since there were only five of us, we brought five of our favorite things so that we all got one of everything. We set our limit at $10 b/c that gives you more options. I wanted to take It's a 10 Lite leave in conditioner as my favorite thing, but after procrastinating I had to settle for Quixx. I knew it would be different, but I don't think many of my friends are really game players.

When I text Darrin on Sunday morning, he said that he had been woken up to Miles throwing up in our bed during the night. This continued for the next several hours. Also, Carson had a bad cough. After breakfast at Cracker Barrel and a few more shops, it was time to head home. We did some serious damage.

While we were in our last store, I started feeling badly. I was kind of tired and nauseous. By the time I drove home, I wasn't feeling great at all. I walked in the door to find two boys sick boys. Both had fevers. Miles was very puny and Carson was whiny. I took a little time to unpack the shopping bags and my suitcase and wipe down our bathroom...all the while very nauseous.

As you can predict, the stomach virus hit me within a couple hours. Darrin put Carson to bed and slept in the guest room. Miles and I stayed in my room and slept all night. Miles ended up sleeping for 14 hours total. I stayed home with the boys on Monday b/c we were all puny. Luckily, we were able to go back to work and school on Tuesday. It was a fun and then very rough weekend. For me, I would say that it was the toughest day to date with two kids. Darrin handled it like the super dad that he is. I wasn't surprised, but I was very thankful, especially when I discovered exactly how bad it had been. Until next year, girls!